WEALTH
Among local tribes wealth was the direct result of skill and industry
and was highly regarded by all. A person’s social status in the tribe
varied directly with his wealth. Lazy persons not able to properly care
for their own needs were considered as bums and looked down upon by all
other members of the village. With wealth went a certain amount of
power. Chiefs, although empowered by heritage, were always well to do,
and the wealthiest men in smaller units acted in the capacity of
head-men.
As with modern man, money among Indians was an arbitrary medium of
exchange, yet it was of more practical value to the Indians than our own
coins are to us. Their money was prized not only for what it would buy
in material things, but as possessing important decorative value as
well.
The long tooth-shell or dentalium was used whole and unmodified. It was
the currency of the northwest California coast. The money of central and
southern California was the clamshell disk. This was cut, smoothed into
disk shapes about half an inch in diameter, and each was perforated with
a central hole by means of which this money could be strung onto cords.
In no case did local tribes travel the California coast to obtain these
shell coins. Instead, this item found its way to Indians of the interior
through progressive or step-by-step trading from coastal tribes through
intermediate aboriginal traders.
As we might expect, dentalia, having a northern origin, were secured by
Atsugewi not from their neighbors to the south, but from the northern
Yana in exchange for buckskins, arrows, wildcat skin quivers, and
woodpecker scalps. The mountain Maidu did not have dentalia at all.
Except for the central Yana custom of measuring the length of strings of
clamshell disks, amounts of money were determined by counting and not by
measuring length on arm tatoos as was so commonly the case in other
parts of California. Skins of small mammals which had been skinned by
making only one slit in the hind quarters and whose mouth openings had
been tied shut, served as purses.
All of our tribes used clamshell money. Among Yana clamshell disks were
not as valuable as dentalia, and they were more common also among
Atsugewi, the dentalia being used more for decoration than as money. The
tribes of the Lassen region generally received the finished clamshell
money; almost never did they manufacture this, although they did work
traded abalone shell into jewelry pieces.
Material wealth or treasure other than weapons, skins, baskets, and food
also consisted largely of imported seashells. Whole olivella shells were
commonly used as dress ornaments and also for paying shamans for
services. Bone cylinders, columellae of shells, and especially polished
cylinders of the mineral magnesite were highly prized. These might be
used as the central piece of a necklace in the same manner that we might
utilize a precious gem.